1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a cable connector assembly, and more particularly to a cable connector assembly used for high-speed signal transmission.
2. Description of Related Art
A committee called SFF is an ad hoc group formed to address storage industry needs in a prompt manner. When formed in 1990, the original goals were limited to define de facto mechanical envelopes within disk drives can be developed to fit compact computer and other small products. Specification SFF-8088 defines matable Compact Multilane Shielded connectors adopted for being used in laptop portable computer to connect small-size disk drives to a printed circuit board. The connectors comprise a cable connector assembly connecting with the small-size drive and a header mounted on the printed circuit board. The cable connector assembly defined in the specification comprises a metal housing defining a receiving space, a PCB received in the receiving space, a cable comprising a plurality of conductors electrically connecting with the PCB, and a latching mechanism assembled to the metal housing. The metal housing comprises a base portion to which the latching mechanism is assembled and a tongue portion extending forwardly from a front surface of the base portion. The cable connector assembly further comprises an EMI (Electro Magnetic Interference) gasket assembled to the tongue portion and attaching to the front surface of the base portion for touching with a panel on which the header connector is mounted to reduce EMI. The EMI gasket is retained to the tongue portion by friction therebetween. However, such fashion may cause unstable connection between the EMI gasket and the cable connector assembly. The EMI gasket may separate from the cable connector assembly and thus, the function of reducing EMI through contacting with the panel cannot be assured and the signal transmission between the cable connector assembly and the header connector is influenced.
To enhance the function of reducing EMI, grounding elements with different structures and similar function as the EMI gasket have been developed and disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,922,056, 4,386,814, 5,622,523, 5,967,842, 6,074,218, 6,227,904 and 6,095,862 et al. However, these types of grounding elements are not suitable to the cable connector assembly disclosed above. A new type of EMI gasket is needed to be provided to meet the requirements of the cable connector assembly.